Wednesday, April 26, 2006

While the big races this weekend are #1 vs. #2 and #3 vs. #4, there are a few other races as well. Stanford is scheduled to race the Cal heavies. They raced the lights last week, and at Cal the lights (club) and heavies (varsity) definitely do not mix. Whichever boats Stanford is racing, they'll have their work cut out for them.

URI is scheduled to race Holy Cross. As far as I know Holy Cross hasn't raced a lightweight boat this year, but they do have a light eight entered at ECACs so URI may get a lightweight race in. This would be good for URI since that crew could be a Dad Vail threat and another race would only make them faster. Speaking of Dad Vail, URI isn't scheduled to race. I guess this is the old ECAC vs. Dad Vail thing. The larger lightweight race (at the moment) is ECAC Metro which is on May 6th, but some schools are racing at another ECAC which is May 13th, same as Dad Vail. I have to say, I have no idea what the difference is in these races or why a crew would do one and not the other, or both. Why this regatta continues the old rivalry with Dad Vail is beyond me. The ECAC should get over it and stop making the athletes pay. There must be something I don't understand here...

Bucknell heads to the Patriot League Championships where they will not race a light eight. Meanwhile Lehigh is looking for a light eight to race against in the Patriot Challenge. (I think it's the same regatta with the Challenge offering events that do not count toward the championship - someone correct me if I'm wrong here.) I'm always disappointed when Bucknell doesn't race as a light eight because racing lightweight boats in heavyweight events hides the true number of lightweights racing. In this case, however, I understand why Bucknell does it. If their lightweight boat has a chance to win the 2V race, which counts toward the championship, they race it as a 2V. Here it's the system that forces this behavior. I'd really like to see a Bucknell vs. Lehigh race, though. Bucknell would be heavily favored but we'd see a Lehigh eight, which gets votes in the coaches' poll, race for the first time.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The ECAC championship was created to do things better than the Dad Vail. It only invites fast crews, and the heats are seeded. The course is straight and fair. The regatta takes place on the weekend so as to not interfere with classes and finals.

I can't argue with the occasional course problems at Dad Vail, but just because a regatta takes all comers doesn't make it not a championship regatta. It does make it a bit messier, and often results in seedings some consider unfair, but it is still a championship regatta. No way would I believe the winner of the ECAC light eight to always be superior to the winner of the Dad Vail light eight. In fact, last year, Dayton beat Ohio State at Dad Vail. My point really is that ECAC should schedule their regatta on a different weekend so schools can race both. As it is the lightweight eight field is split and neither Dad Vail nor ECAC has the best field it could have. I don't see how this can be good for lightweight rowing.